Palace of Spies (31 page)

My mouth had gone dry. “If he’s been designing for the palace, then he must have a floor plan. One that might show where the old queen’s bedroom is?”

“Yes,” said Matthew softly. “Yes, I believe he does.”

“That is a good thought,” said Mrs. Abbott, and as a mark of how very much things had changed, I did not hear any trace of her old reluctance in this acknowledgment. “That is how we must think now.”

“Robert has a head start,” said Matthew with the air of a man making a last stand. “And a horse. Even if the roads are poor, we’ll never catch up with him now.”

I bit my lip hard. That could not be the end of it. We could not be stopped by so mundane a thing as a stolen horse and a few hours’ head start.

“Then it will have to be by water,” said Mrs. Abbott. “I will go to the bargemen at the boathouse and speak to them for you. This will require a very large bribe.”

I got my purse out of my desk and handed it to her, cursing the fact that I had let Sophy win so much from me the other night. Then I turned to Matthew. I meant to tell him he could go. I meant to thank him for all that he had done and how I was so glad to have known him. I would be firm. I would not endanger him further. He did not deserve it. This plot and all its entanglements were none of his doing.

But he simply leveled his steel gray eyes at me, and all those fine and honorable intentions died a death that was as sudden as it was complete.

“I’ll go pack,” he said. “You cannot go alone.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

I have a warning I wish to impart most urgently to all young ladies of delicate breeding who wish to embark upon lives of adventure:

Don’t.

Adventures, as it happens, are universally uncomfortable things, and as near as I can determine, are frowned upon by Nature and Nature’s God. We had not been on the river yet half an hour before it began once more to rain: a steady downpour of determined drops such as would worm their way under all layers of cloth to leave me soaked to the skin and cold to my bones.

Neither was that the only inconvenience regarding clothing. It should be obvious to even the most casual and disinterested observer that a lady cannot go adventuring in her mantua. Matthew, who had already sacrificed so much for this mad venture, went further yet and lent me his spare set of clothes. Nothing fit, from the boots to the coat, and having my legs exposed to the view of the entire world, even though encased in breeches, was much less comfortable than I had dreamed it would be.

It was not made any more comfortable by the fact that this was no royal barge that carried us. We rode in a battered rowboat so slender and low that the Thames regularly lapped over the gunwales. One sour, tobacco-spitting man plied the oars. Another stood in the bow by the lantern, watching the way and cursing the rain, the river, the dark, and anything else that came to mind. Matthew and I huddled together on a lumpy sack. On this small and makeshift sofa, my all but naked leg pressed up close to Matthew’s. My side, which was innocent of stays for almost the first time since I had turned eleven, pushed against his.

The true agony was that I had no strength of heart or mind left to enjoy this position. Quite apart from the rough river and the freezing damp, I was half dead with worry over Olivia. Mrs. Abbott swore she was out of danger. Matthew said the same, but how could she be? She was still in the palace. The murderer still roamed freely somewhere.

Olivia’s only real hope was for Matthew and me to reach Kensington ahead of Robert, find this hidden Jacobite thing, and bring it to Their Royal Highnesses. We had a chance at that. Even in good weather, Matthew assured me, it was more than eight hours’ hard ride from Hampton Court to Kensington. And this was most decidedly not good weather. The roads would be rivers of mud. We still had time. We still had a chance.

If there was any good to be had from this, I thought miserably, it was that I was obeying my instructions. I had left the palace by the back door. I had even turned thief. I hoped Mr. Peele, wherever he might be, was satisfied or, at the least, confused and delayed.

It was full dark by the time our little slip of a boat pulled up to the Kensington dock. There we were met by the frustrations of a fresh delay while Matthew first found us a stable, and then while he banged on the door and shouted to wake the fat, surly, unshaven owner, who smelled of horses and onions. The remains of my coinage eventually convinced him to hire us a cart, and Matthew’s stern eye eventually got us a horse that wasn’t swaybacked or broken-winded. I appropriated a stool to load into our cart when the stableman wasn’t looking and didn’t feel the least twinge of guilt. After all, he was trying to cheat us, and we would be bringing it back. Probably.

Thus it was we forsook our long, wet, cold ride in a rocking boat for a long, wet, cold drive in a rickety cart. Even though the rain relented, the moon remained lost behind the clouds, and the cart’s lantern sputtered dangerously. Mud became our enemy. Our hired horse would only pick its way slowly along. We held our breath when the wheels stuck and stuck again. If we broke a wheel or an axle, we were lost. If this old, mended conveyance overturned, we might add broken bones to the night’s adventures. I was several times afraid we’d be forced to stop somewhere to wait for dawn. By then, Robert could have easily gotten to the palace before us and made off with . . . whatever it was.

I could have gotten Olivia near killed, could have lost Matthew his place and walked myself to the gallows, and it might still be all for nothing.

We finally limped up to the grounds of Kensington Palace on its eastern side, where it stood hard by the narrow, muddy country lane that branched off the king’s highway. Matthew quite sensibly pointed out that it would not do us any good to try to enter from the main road, as we might be seen by those who kept the lodges and gatehouses. He was right, of course, although I found I doubted the existence of such creatures. The world seemed to have entirely emptied of people. The only sounds were the rush of the frustratingly cold wind in the hedges and the hoot of owls warning one another to keep away. The moon had probably passed its zenith, but the clouds still gathered so thick and hung so low, there was no way to be sure.

A high green hedge separated the lane from the palace grounds. Matthew lay flat on the ground and wriggled between the crooked hornbeam trunks, pushing the pierced tin lantern we had taken from the cart ahead of him. He twisted hard and smothered several curses along the way. Despite all our difficulties and dangers, I felt a grin spreading on my face. I ducked myself down and snaked straight through. Even pulling my stolen stool with me, I was on my feet again while he was still up to his waist in hedge. Matthew glowered as I held out my hand to help pull him the rest of the way.

“Country summers,” I whispered. “Olivia always said I could turn poacher if I had a mind to.”

I realized slowly that neither of us showed any inclination to let go of the other’s hand. And that for once in my life, I was not wearing gloves, so we touched skin to skin, as cold as those skins might be. Matthew touched the corner of my mouth. His eyes shone with far more than lantern light.

We both let go in the same instant and turned away before such thoughts could get the better of us. In silent accord, we started across the vast lawn as swiftly as we dared. If all our plans failed because of a twisted ankle or knee, it would be a most sorry end. And possibly a deadly one, if Robert and his confederates found us before honest help did. Of course, that honest help would probably be those lodge keepers Matthew hypothesized, and they might not be inclined to look with gentle amusement upon our antics.

Kensington Palace was a sprawling building, mostly L-shaped, with three stories and enough chimneys and windows for a good-sized village. We fetched up against the red brick wall and stood there, panting. Matthew shielded the lantern with his hat, and we both listened, straining our ears. There was nothing. Nothing in all the world save us, the wind, and the night creatures. Matthew nodded, and I nodded in reply, and we turned to face the palace we meant to plunder.

All the windows were shuttered. There was no hint of light to be seen, no human sound to be heard. The wind whistled mischievously around the eaves and chimneys as if it sought to rouse them from their slumbers. Inside its tin housing, our lone candle flickered fitfully.

“This will do as well as any.” Matthew set the stool beneath the sill of the nearest window. We both had canvas satchels slung over our shoulders for carrying a few items we’d deemed might be useful for this venture. I had brought rope and a tinderbox. From his sack, Matthew took out an oiled leather wrapper filled with an array of delicate tools, most of which seemed to be knives. They were for carving wood and plaster, he told me, as well as mending other tools. And they could, in a pinch, be used to lift a latch.

The doors would all be barred, but the shutters should only have a single latch. I wanted very much to ask how he was so sure of this detail regarding housebreaking, but held my peace. If we were successful, there would be time for such revelations later. If we failed, they would not matter.

Matthew selected a palette knife and murmured either a prayer or an apology. I held the lantern as high and steady as I could while trying to look over my shoulder the whole time. There were hooves sounding on the road, imagination told me urgently. That was not just my heartbeat. That was hooves, and they were thudding louder. The riders would see the light. They already had. It was the lodge keepers. It was the city watch. Did the watch come out this far?

“There.” Matthew folded one shutter back to show the glass glimmering in the lantern light. “Now for the panes. Hold the light closer.”

Even with the stool, Matthew had to stand on tiptoe to slip his knife between the casements. The stool shifted on the mud and gravel below, and he cursed. He wriggled the blade, cursed again, and wriggled the blade some more. I tasted blood where I was biting my lip to keep from begging him to hurry. Finally, there sounded the soft and infinitely beautiful scrape of metal on metal. Matthew settled back on his heels, staring, as if he could not believe what he’d done. But he dug his fingers between the casements, and the window swung smoothly outward.

We grinned at each other and gripped our hands. Matthew made one of his fine bows, and then laced his fingers together, making a cup for my foot. I let him boost me inside.

I landed awkwardly, and my ill-fitting boots sounded like thunder on the floor. I crouched beneath the sill, straining with all my might to hear past the fading echoes of my own ungainly entrance. I heard the night noises, and the wind overhead. These were accompanied by a low, slow creaking in the walls as the great, empty house settled itself for the night. There was nothing else, except an annoyed hiss from Matthew.

He passed me the lantern and the stool, and scrabbled in over the window ledge. While he caught his breath, I pulled the shutters closed and latched the windows again. Matthew shone the lantern about the room. It was a large chamber, made larger by the fact that it was absolutely empty. There was no plan for the court to return to this residence until next spring, so the vast majority of the furnishings and draperies had been removed to other palaces or to storage. The walls were decorated with dust cloths hung over the few paintings that had been permitted to remain.

We exited that room by the only door and found ourselves in a gallery that might as well have been the center of the earth, it was so dark. Beyond the tiny sphere of illumination our candle made, there was nothing.

Was Robert here? Had he been and gone already? There was no way at all to tell.

Matthew reached into his satchel again and brought out a thick and much-folded paper. He opened it and squinted at the ink and pencil lines. “This way. I think.”

In popular dramas, there occur frequent instances of players slipping through a darkened house. Thieves, mad monks, desperate heroes, and all such personages manage it with ease. I can now speak the truth and say it is in no way as simple as it sounds. My too big, too stiff boots thumped against the floor, no matter how softly I tried to move. Each breath, each rustle echoed off walls we could not see, until it seemed we traveled with an entire regiment shadowing us. Claws scrabbled about the wainscoting as the rats fled our light. The wind found its way inside at least as easily as we had and curled in damp drafts around our already frozen ankles. The darkness gave us no limits for our eyes, and our fingertips grazed the walls and the occasional piece of furniture that had been left behind. Once, in a racket fit to split the world in two, I banged against a set of fire irons. We both jumped and froze in place, but there was nothing to follow that horrible, ringing crash. Nothing, that is, except for an extra flutter from the dust cloths that hung over the paintings, making shadows across our pitiful puddle of light and setting my mind thinking far too much on ghosts.

Adding to these burdens was the fact that I kept stopping us in our prolonged slink through the empty chambers and galleries. Not once, but again, and again. My heart would not slow, neither would my breath, and I could not fight the growing certainty that we were being followed. There was another shadow here, another pair of footsteps. Something pattered against the wood, and it was not the rats. Somewhere, the wind brought a fresh scent, like mud and damp wool. I was certain of it. Robert was already here. Or a confederate.

“Peggy, stop it,” snapped Matthew finally. “You’ll ruin your own nerves.”

“It’s already done,” I muttered back. But I clenched my fists and my jaw and let him take us around another corner. We passed through yet another antechamber with its fireplace irons keeping a lonely watch beside the empty hearth. From there we came to an open room with curving walls. A grand staircase rose to one side. A chandelier encased in gauze netting hung from the high, vaulted ceiling. For one moment, it looked like a web spun by gargantuan spiders. In the next moment, I wished desperately I had never thought of that. The rats sneaking with us through the dark were quite bad enough. I did not need to go inventing other large vermin.